by Charles Kluepfel
7/13/. Beginning Catholic Apologetics
I attend a series of seminars on Catholic apologetics. Read what they teach, and why it's wrong
Summary
- I recently sat in on a seminar for Catholics to learn apologetics, that is, how to convince others of the truth of Catholicism. It utilized a book called Beginning Apologetics I, by Father Frank Chacon and Jim Burnham. I shall begin with the set of rules that they present for such dialog, with my comments added to remove the emphasis that they place on the Catholic side of the dialog.
- After the list of rules for dialog, are presented some specific topics for which the apologetics book presents the Catholic side. I also present some of the arguments given by Father Matt, who led the seminars. I present rational counter-arguments to these Catholic beliefs.
The following is based on the introduction to Beginning Apologetics I, by Father Frank Chacon and Jim Burnham. After each numbered paragraph from that work's "A Beginner's Guide to Apologetics", I comment on how it might apply to a dialog between a non-believer and a Catholic or other Christian, and on some presentations made of the material in this book by Father Matt of Saint Thomas the Apostle Church in Bloomfield, NJ.
After the set of rules, I present some of the specific topics of Catholic apologetics that were brought up in apologetics book, and in the seminars that used this book as a text.
As a set of rules, what is particularly egregious is the contrast between rule 6 (Focus) and rule 7 (Topics). The former specifies the person being evangelized not be allowed to depart from a given topic; the latter allows the evangelizer to scatter-shot topics across the board. This is not an even-handed way of conducting a discussion.
The rules of dialog, as specified in the apologetics book, are shown in black, and my comments follow, in blue.
1. Holiness. Base apologetics on the love of God and His Truth. An apologist who is not concerned with personal holiness will not be very effective.
Each person must follow his own idea of "holiness". If one partner to the dialog is an atheist, of course he cannot base any of his actions on a love of God. Hopefully we all respect the truth, and seek to find it.
During Father Matt's seminar, he asked us to imagine making a mental list of the five best people and the five worst people that we could think of. After we had done this, we were invited to determine which of these believed in God and which didn't. Hitler, who professed to believe in God, headed my list of bad people. Isaac Asimov, an atheist, headed my list of good people. I did not know at the time Father Matt's purpose in having us think up the lists. The results in my case would apparently surprise Fr. Matt.
2. Charity. Remember that you are a missionary, not a debater. Your goal is to explain and evangelize, not to win arguments. You must have charity at all times, even in the most heated discussions.
This is important for all participants, whether Catholic, Protestant or non-Christian, although I would disagree with the wording. With two people of differing points of view, the result will be a debate—hopefully an intellectually motivated debate, as each side tries to show the other the truth as each person sees it. We want the best for the other person, and that is to recognize the truth.
3. Unity. Begin by stressing that we agree with other Christians on many important points. Acknowledge the sincerity and zeal of our separated brothers in Christ.
This of course does not apply when one of the participants is non-Christian.
4. Study. Be prepared to study at least 30 minutes three times per week. Read the Bible 20 minutes, and use the other 10 minutes to read a good Catholic catechism. In your study of the Bible, concentrate on the New Testament. Be sure to highlight important passages and use the cross-references and footnotes.
This is important for anyone. For a non-Christian "de-evangelizing" a Christian, the books might change, such as using Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, or Ken's Guide to the Bible. (See my Order Books section.)
5. Equal time. Do not allow the non-Catholic evangelizer to take up all the time or ask all the questions. Divide the time equally and ask him a few challenging questions of your own.
This goes both ways. We are all familiar with the evangelizer who hogs the time.
6. Focus. Insist on staying on the main issues during the discussion. Don't let the other person ask a dozen different questions and expect you to answer them all in ten minutes. Explain the need to stay focused and to allow plenty of time for answers. The chief concern is to shed light on the truth, not to make cheap debating points.
An example of this came up in the seminar. Fr. Matt had quoted 1 Cor 11:27 to support the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, the topic for the night. The question was, Just because Paul said this, how does that mean that it really is true? I commented about other things in the Bible that are not taken as true today by the Catholic Church, but further discussion was stopped, based on Focus.
7. Topics. Do not feel obligated to stick with the subjects non-Catholics bring up—especially if you're not familiar with them. Insist on talking about the Eucharist at the start of your discussion because it is so important and because it divides Catholics from virtually all Protestants.
Apparently what's sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. While the Catholic apologist requires his dialog partner to retain Focus, the non-Catholic is not allowed to hold the Catholic to a similar Focus. The assumption here is that the Catholic's dialog partner is a Protestant, and thus the pulled-in topic is the Eucharist. But suppose now a non-Christian is discussing scripture or church "authority" with the Catholic. The Catholic can switch the subject at whim to something else?
8. Interpretation. Do not accept the Protestant interpretation of a verse when it contradicts Catholic doctrine. Read it yourself in context and show how the verse can be interpreted to support the Catholic position. Protestants often distort Bible verses to fit their denominational teaching.
Catholics claim that
Mat 23:9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven.
is just figurative, and that "we are not to take these passages literally." The apologetics book points out other verses, which contradict this one:
Acts 7:2 And Stephen replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, …
1 Cor 4:15 For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
While this might work on a Protestant, the non-Christian can see that this is merely a case of different New Testament writers' having different opinions. One cannot imagine what Matthew 23:9 would mean figuratively, that is, what the purpose of "call no one your father on earth" would be, in adding to the meaning of "you have one Father, in heaven," unless the author really thought that no one on earth should be called "father".
9. Canon of the Bible. Show how the Bible was put together by the Catholic Church. Stress the fact that Christianity was around for 350 years before the canon of the New Testament was determined.
Father Matt shows that the Gospels quote Jesus as referring to passages from books in what Protestants refer to as the Apocrypha, but that the Catholic Church accepts as canonical. I pointed out that Jude 1:14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9, yet the book of Enoch does not appear in even the Catholic Canon. If quotation in the undisputedly canonical books of the Bible can assure one set of books' inclusion, why does the same not hold for Enoch? The answer was, the authority of the Church. But that obviates the reasoning that was supposedly being supplied to back up Church teaching.
10. Historical perspective. Have non-Catholics stand back and look at Church history. Get them to see that many Protestant beliefs were unheard of for 1500 years after Christ established His Church. Never end a discussion without stressing the fact that all the early Church Fathers were Catholic in their beliefs. Know a few of the early Church Fathers well: especially St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, and St. Irenaeus.
Again, it might convince Protestants (though they will balk at, say, the Immaculate Conception), but non-Christians don't care what the early church fathers said.
11. Knowledge. Explain Catholic beliefs clearly. This is your primary task. Keep a good catechism handy for this purpose. Don't try to defend a doctrine that you don't understand. If you don't know the answer to a question, honestly admit it and tell them you will get back to them later on the subject after you have done some study.
Of course the non-Christian will use the appropriate skeptical literature.
12. Tempers. Begin and end the discussion with prayer. Keep control of your temper. Apologize if you lose it. Calmly end the discussion if the other person becomes abusive in his approach. Insist that they refrain from abusive attacks on Our Lady and the Eucharist. Ask them simply to state where they disagree and why.
Here's another way to put the Christian in the advantage over the non-Christian in the discussion--begin and end with prayers--this will show that the Christian is in charge.
13. Expertise. Don't be afraid if you are not an expert in Catholic doctrine. You don't have to be; just give them what you know. If you can make just one good point, or correct just one misunderstanding, you have already accomplished a lot. Besides, the very fact that a non-Catholic met a Catholic who is polite, knowledgeable about the Bible, and concerned about saving souls will itself leave a good impression of the Catholic Church.
The very fact that a Christian met a non-Christian who is polite, knowledgeable about the Bible, and concerned about the truth will itself leave a good impression of non-Christians.
14. Caution. Be careful whom you let into your home! Being an apologist doesn't mean throwing away common sense when it comes to trusting strangers.
I've worried about this myself, concerning Jehovah's Witnesses who come to the door. I'd like to give them a good skeptical view, but who knows about strangers?
Each person must follow his own idea of "holiness". If one partner to the dialog is an atheist, of course he cannot base any of his actions on a love of God. Hopefully we all respect the truth, and seek to find it.
During Father Matt's seminar, he asked us to imagine making a mental list of the five best people and the five worst people that we could think of. After we had done this, we were invited to determine which of these believed in God and which didn't. Hitler, who professed to believe in God, headed my list of bad people. Isaac Asimov, an atheist, headed my list of good people. I did not know at the time Father Matt's purpose in having us think up the lists. The results in my case would apparently surprise Fr. Matt.
2. Charity. Remember that you are a missionary, not a debater. Your goal is to explain and evangelize, not to win arguments. You must have charity at all times, even in the most heated discussions.
This is important for all participants, whether Catholic, Protestant or non-Christian, although I would disagree with the wording. With two people of differing points of view, the result will be a debate—hopefully an intellectually motivated debate, as each side tries to show the other the truth as each person sees it. We want the best for the other person, and that is to recognize the truth.
3. Unity. Begin by stressing that we agree with other Christians on many important points. Acknowledge the sincerity and zeal of our separated brothers in Christ.
This of course does not apply when one of the participants is non-Christian.
4. Study. Be prepared to study at least 30 minutes three times per week. Read the Bible 20 minutes, and use the other 10 minutes to read a good Catholic catechism. In your study of the Bible, concentrate on the New Testament. Be sure to highlight important passages and use the cross-references and footnotes.
This is important for anyone. For a non-Christian "de-evangelizing" a Christian, the books might change, such as using Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, or Ken's Guide to the Bible. (See my Order Books section.)
5. Equal time. Do not allow the non-Catholic evangelizer to take up all the time or ask all the questions. Divide the time equally and ask him a few challenging questions of your own.
This goes both ways. We are all familiar with the evangelizer who hogs the time.
6. Focus. Insist on staying on the main issues during the discussion. Don't let the other person ask a dozen different questions and expect you to answer them all in ten minutes. Explain the need to stay focused and to allow plenty of time for answers. The chief concern is to shed light on the truth, not to make cheap debating points.
An example of this came up in the seminar. Fr. Matt had quoted 1 Cor 11:27 to support the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, the topic for the night. The question was, Just because Paul said this, how does that mean that it really is true? I commented about other things in the Bible that are not taken as true today by the Catholic Church, but further discussion was stopped, based on Focus.
7. Topics. Do not feel obligated to stick with the subjects non-Catholics bring up—especially if you're not familiar with them. Insist on talking about the Eucharist at the start of your discussion because it is so important and because it divides Catholics from virtually all Protestants.
Apparently what's sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. While the Catholic apologist requires his dialog partner to retain Focus, the non-Catholic is not allowed to hold the Catholic to a similar Focus. The assumption here is that the Catholic's dialog partner is a Protestant, and thus the pulled-in topic is the Eucharist. But suppose now a non-Christian is discussing scripture or church "authority" with the Catholic. The Catholic can switch the subject at whim to something else?
8. Interpretation. Do not accept the Protestant interpretation of a verse when it contradicts Catholic doctrine. Read it yourself in context and show how the verse can be interpreted to support the Catholic position. Protestants often distort Bible verses to fit their denominational teaching.
Catholics claim that
Mat 23:9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven.
is just figurative, and that "we are not to take these passages literally." The apologetics book points out other verses, which contradict this one:
Acts 7:2 And Stephen replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, …
1 Cor 4:15 For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
While this might work on a Protestant, the non-Christian can see that this is merely a case of different New Testament writers' having different opinions. One cannot imagine what Matthew 23:9 would mean figuratively, that is, what the purpose of "call no one your father on earth" would be, in adding to the meaning of "you have one Father, in heaven," unless the author really thought that no one on earth should be called "father".
9. Canon of the Bible. Show how the Bible was put together by the Catholic Church. Stress the fact that Christianity was around for 350 years before the canon of the New Testament was determined.
Father Matt shows that the Gospels quote Jesus as referring to passages from books in what Protestants refer to as the Apocrypha, but that the Catholic Church accepts as canonical. I pointed out that Jude 1:14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9, yet the book of Enoch does not appear in even the Catholic Canon. If quotation in the undisputedly canonical books of the Bible can assure one set of books' inclusion, why does the same not hold for Enoch? The answer was, the authority of the Church. But that obviates the reasoning that was supposedly being supplied to back up Church teaching.
10. Historical perspective. Have non-Catholics stand back and look at Church history. Get them to see that many Protestant beliefs were unheard of for 1500 years after Christ established His Church. Never end a discussion without stressing the fact that all the early Church Fathers were Catholic in their beliefs. Know a few of the early Church Fathers well: especially St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, and St. Irenaeus.
Again, it might convince Protestants (though they will balk at, say, the Immaculate Conception), but non-Christians don't care what the early church fathers said.
11. Knowledge. Explain Catholic beliefs clearly. This is your primary task. Keep a good catechism handy for this purpose. Don't try to defend a doctrine that you don't understand. If you don't know the answer to a question, honestly admit it and tell them you will get back to them later on the subject after you have done some study.
Of course the non-Christian will use the appropriate skeptical literature.
12. Tempers. Begin and end the discussion with prayer. Keep control of your temper. Apologize if you lose it. Calmly end the discussion if the other person becomes abusive in his approach. Insist that they refrain from abusive attacks on Our Lady and the Eucharist. Ask them simply to state where they disagree and why.
Here's another way to put the Christian in the advantage over the non-Christian in the discussion--begin and end with prayers--this will show that the Christian is in charge.
13. Expertise. Don't be afraid if you are not an expert in Catholic doctrine. You don't have to be; just give them what you know. If you can make just one good point, or correct just one misunderstanding, you have already accomplished a lot. Besides, the very fact that a non-Catholic met a Catholic who is polite, knowledgeable about the Bible, and concerned about saving souls will itself leave a good impression of the Catholic Church.
The very fact that a Christian met a non-Christian who is polite, knowledgeable about the Bible, and concerned about the truth will itself leave a good impression of non-Christians.
14. Caution. Be careful whom you let into your home! Being an apologist doesn't mean throwing away common sense when it comes to trusting strangers.
I've worried about this myself, concerning Jehovah's Witnesses who come to the door. I'd like to give them a good skeptical view, but who knows about strangers?
On The Eucharist
This chapter goes to great lengths to show the church's belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, or that the Eucharist is Jesus. The book claims that this does not make communicants cannibals: the authors say "It was exactly this misunderstanding that led the unbelieving Jews and disciples in John 6 to reject Jesus when He spoke about the need to eat His body and drink His blood. The believing disciples were rewarded for their faith at the Last Supper. Jesus revealed to them that they would receive His body and blood in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, not in the bloody, cannibalistic way the unbelievers had imagined." Yet the book assures us that the Eucharist is in fact Jesus, who the Church teaches was true man (human). At the same time, the dictionary tells us that cannibalism is "the eating of human flesh by another human being".
The Bible readings, and opinions of early church fathers, would only convince Protestants (if they even do that--I certainly cannot guarantee that any given Protestant will be convinced). A non-Christian wouldn't care about such things.
Two curious sentences contradict one another: "Until the Reformation, all Christianity accepted the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist." and "St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple and contemporary of the Apostle John, wrote (around 110 A.D.[sic]) concerning certain heretics: 'They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again.' But a heretic, to be a heretic, must be a Christian, as a Jew or a Pagan would not be called a heretic. So there were some Christians who did not accept the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, before the Reformation.
The Catholic apologist is also told to "mention some of the great Eucharistic miracles that God has given us to confirm the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Joan Cruz's EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES is an excellent resource for this purpose. Many of these miracles have been scientifically verified." If this were truly the case, the entire world would become Catholic. But spontaneous remissions from cancer have been called miraculous, when in fact they are just the workings of normal bodily defenses. I have been duped before. I have purchased books purporting to get around the circularity of the Bible supporting the Church and the Church authenticating the truth of the Bible only to find it did no such thing. I'm not about to waste my time or money on another such book, which, if truly possessing what this reference claims for it, would be a best seller.
Of course not mentioned is the fact that mystery religions existed in the Hellenistic world about the time of Christianity's beginning--mystery religions in which the body of the risen savior, in the form of bread, was shared among the faithful. Christianity brought these beliefs into itself and attributed the sacrament to Jesus via writing Last Supper sayings into the Gospels.
On The Canon of the Bible
This section of Beginning Apologetics I tells us that "the Septuagint [a Greek translation of the Old Testament, originating in Alexandria, and including a few biblical books considered apocryphal by the Protestants and Jews] was the translation used by Jesus and the New Testament writers." The "Jesus" portion of this quote is rather startling considering the New Testament's use on various occasions of quoting Jesus in the Aramaic he is supposed to have spoken, such as in
Mat 27:46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
[quoting Psalm 22:1, but showing that Jesus was considered to have used the Aramaic rather than the Greek translation]
Mark 5:41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"
Mark 14:36 He said, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want."
The purpose of the claim is to show that the books Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Baruch, Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees, which Protestants consider apocryphal, actually ought to be, and are, part of the "sacred Canon".
In support of this claim, Father Matt stated that unquestioned books of the New Testament quote or have Jesus quoting from these books. But if this constitutes support for inclusion of these works in the Canon, then one would assume that the first book of Enoch would be included in the Canon also, as
Jude 1:14-15 It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
quotes from 1 Enoch 1:9. By the way, Luther, according to the Catholic apologetics book, objected to having Jude in the Canon, also. One can see the logic: if it references a non-Canonical book, yet we don't want to make that book Canonical, then the referencing book must be non-Canonical. In logic, this is called the contrapositive of Father Matt's support for the Apocrypha. That is, if book A is canonical and references book B, then book B is canonical. That's Father Matt's argument. The contrapositive is logically equivalent: If book B is not canonical, then book A, which references it, must also be not canonical.
The gist of the authors' arguments is summed up in their statement "To trust the Bible is to trust the authority of the Church which guarantees the Bible." But that's a question for the next chapter.
On Apostolic Authority: Peter and the Papacy
Surprise. The authority of the Church, including the papacy, rests firmly on scripture and history. The historical part refers to the writings of the early church fathers, such as St. Irenaeus, supporting the idea that "Christians must be united to the Church of Rome in order to maintain the Apostolic Tradition."
But the only basis for considering the church and Christianity in general to be true comes from the Bible and its early believers. That being the case, the consideration from the preceding chapter, that "to trust the Bible is to trust the authority of the Church which guarantees the Bible," turns this into a textbook example of circular reasoning.
The Bible itself is the only source we have for the divine claims made for Jesus, for the discipleship and apostleship and for various miracles and attestations of Jesus' loving nature. There is also a set of writings, including Gospels and letters, that were not included in the Canon. They also claim to be the truth, as do the writings of the early church fathers.
Father Matt claims that the argument is not circular, but rather, the Epistle and Gospel testimonies serve similarly to testimony in a court of law: If Person A says he saw a certain event, and Person B agrees with what A say, and so does C, then the testimony is considered to be corroborated. However this ignores more than a couple of relevant facts. In a court of law, both sides present witnesses, not just one. The Gospel record suffers from two levels of self-selection in its testimony. First, the Gospel authors decided upon themselves to come forward with testimony. They weren't selected because they would have been in the best position to judge the events. That brings up the second level of self-selection. The early Church, already believing in a certain set of doctrines, chose among the gospels extant at the time, which ones to present in the Canon, and of course they chose the ones that agreed with their position. So, it's like having only witnesses that choose to present themselves being heard, rather than subpoenaing relevant witnesses, and then having only one side in the dispute choose which witnesses to present. This is on top of the fact that the witnesses are writing decades after the events in question.
The next glaring difference from a court of law is that witnesses in court are not allowed to hear each other's testimony, so that corroboration would indeed strengthen a case. But that is not the case with the evangelists. Matthew and Luke had Mark's Gospel to work with plus oral tradition and probably other written documents. Luke may even have had Matthew to work with, but that may be unlikely because they disagreed. Some may say that the disagreements are minor, but consider the following courtroom testimony:
Say it's a murder trial and the only witnesses allowed to speak are the friends of the defendant, say his mother, father, brother, and girlfriend. The murder took place in New York, and the first two witnesses, the defendant's mother and his girlfriend, agree that he wasn't in New York at the time of the murder. The mother knows he wasn't in New York because he was with her in Chicago. The girlfriend knows he wasn't in New York because he was with her in Miami. Do we say they harmoniously agree, since they both agree that he was not in New York? I don't think so.
What's the Gospel analog of this? Both Matthew and Luke wanted to have Jesus be known as the Nazarene, from Nazareth, under the mistaken idea that the Old Testament predicted that a Messiah would be so known (it actually says a Nazirite, something else entirely). But they also wanted Jesus to fulfill another Old Testament prophecy about another Messiah--that he would be from Bethlehem. What did they do to fulfill both "prophecies"? Matthew said that Jesus' family moved to Nazareth only several years after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the family's old hometown. Luke, however, had the family living in Nazareth all along, but around the time of Jesus' birth, having to stay in Bethlehem for a while for a taxation Census. Never mind that the census of Quirinius took place a decade after Herod died, thus positing an impossible-to-fit juxtaposition of the "slaughter of the innocents" by Herod and the taxation census; the Church still claims these are good reporters. The two different ways that the evangelists had of placing Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and home in Nazareth, are like the two ways that our defendant's mother and his girlfriend had of placing him outside New York at the time of the murder.
How can it be that four "witnesses" would all want Jesus to be the Messiah? In our present century, have we not read or heard of stories written about people seeing Elvis walking around even after he died? People have also claimed that their lives have changed through faith in Elvis' goodness, and even prayer to him. You could go to an Elvis convention and find plenty of witnesses for Elvis. There is an oral tradition of Elvis' generosity as well as his post-mortem shopping at K-mart. But it's not just in the present day that some people need a savior so much, that glimmers of stories floating in the air at the time, are turned into beliefs. Oral traditions get translated into stories in the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, the Globe, etc. Or the gospels, both canonical and non-canonical.
As for the intraChristian split between Catholics and Protestants:
The apologists claim that Protestants are "grasping at straws" in their claim that St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, in making a final pronouncement in Acts 15:13-21 and Acts 21:15-25, was acting as head of the church. That's a matter of opinion. Peter had presented some arguments, but it looks from the passages that James had the last word. In the Jerusalem Bible Acts 15:19 has James say, after hearing and summarizing Peter's arguments, "Therefore I rule that …". Also, consider that Acts is written already from the biased point of view of Pauline Christianity, that is, the point of view of the former Christian persecutor, who went on to infiltrate and change (some would say subvert) the Church from its Palestinian roots. The Catholic apologists also ask "if [Protestants] think Peter was not infallible, why do they accept his two letters as inspired and, therefore, infallible?" But this would work two ways. We might ask, "If Catholics think James was not infallible, why do they accept his letter as inspired and, therefore, infallible?" If one goes on the basis of written letters accepted into the canon, one would think Paul would have been the first Pope, considering all his canonical letters. Clearly Christians other than Catholics accept various authorities as inspired, but object to singling out one.
Any verses that Catholics bring up to show that indeed Peter was to be the leader merely show the Bible to be in contradiction with itself.
That leads us to our authors' question for Catholic apologists to ask Protestants: "Ask them why Jesus would give this tremendous authority to St. Peter [assuming that he has] and not intend for it to be passed on. If the early Christians needed an authoritative leader, later Christians would need one even more. After all, many of the early Christians heard the Gospel from Christ Himself and knew the Apostles personally. After all the Apostles died, the Church would have even greater need of the power of the keys when enemies would try to corrupt the teachings of Christ."
But, Jesus is reputed to have said,
Mat 16:27 "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
Mat 16:28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
thus there was no need for a church--no need for apostolic succession, as the world would end in the first generation, with eye-witnesses to Jesus still alive. Of course it didn't turn out that way, but that's what the earliest Christians, including Paul, believed. See Where Is He?
Even if all the rest were true--that Jesus appointed Peter, and that there was a succession from Peter, how could it be known that papal elections were conducted properly, that popes were not anti-popes and vice versa, or that the true succession were through some bishops now forgotten? The Protestants could claim that some popes stole their elections by force, but for whatever reason the chain was broken and false doctrines were introduced, such as the Immaculate Conception or Assumption.
Finally, the authors claim that "in the first 200 years of Christianity, every Pope [bishop of Rome] but one was martyred--the Romans certainly knew who the head of the Church was!" But that conflates immediate impact with being the head. Surely the U.S. government would be more worried about Palestinian terrorists in Washington, D.C. than overseas. Or, better yet, the British government at the height of the British Empire would be more worried about insurgents infiltrating London than in the many insurgents in its overseas territories. That would not be proof that the leaders of any London operations would be the true leaders of the insurgency. Rome was the heart of the empire. Christians would be more visible there, and more out of place, and more of a perceived danger, regardless of where the overall leadership of the Church was.
On Marian Doctrines:
On point of order, the Catholic apologists say "Fundamentalists often want to discuss Marian beliefs immediately. Insist on starting with more basic differences: Apostolic authority, the Eucharist, or the "Bible alone" idea. However, you should be prepared to eventually discuss Marian doctrines." But what if the fundamentalist is following a similar set of rules as the Catholic apologist? … specifically "Focus". You wouldn't want the fundamentalist apologist to ignore a rule on his side that is just as important as your own, would you? … or would you?
As for content, the Catholics are right on here. The authors, using reason when it suits them, say that logically, if Jesus is God, and Mary is Jesus' mother, then Mary is the mother of God. This makes perfect sense even to me. But it does not make sense to me that Jesus could be considered God, especially in the light of Biblical passages.
By nature God is omniscient and never changing, yet it is said by "inspired" literature, about Jesus, that
Luke 2:40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
It's OK to say that Jesus' body, being God's body, grew, as God created time, but if Jesus was not always filled with wisdom is to say he was not omniscient, and was not God.
According to at least two evangelists Jesus denied divinity:
Mark 10:18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
Luke 18:19 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
Mary's Perpetual Virginity:
The authors claim that "'brothers' in the Bible can also mean 'relatives.' If Jesus had blood brothers, He would not have entrusted Mary to John, but to one of them." They go on later to say "The Hebrew and Aramaic languages spoken by Christ and His disciples do not have separate words for 'brother,' 'cousin,' or 'near-relative.' For example, in the original Hebrew, Lot is called Abraham's 'brother' (Gen 14:14). Yet we know that Lot was Abraham's nephew (Gen 11:27). The Jews used the word 'brother' for any near relative, without necessarily meaning 'blood-brothers.'"
But the Hebrews used Aramaic or Hebrew, not English. So they used a word which someone (I don't know who) might translate as brother, but the Jerusalem Bible, a Catholic work, translates Gen 14:14 as
When Abram heard that his kinsman had been held captive…
So that Hebrew word simply meant kinsman. No good translator would translate it as "brother". Then what?
The New Testament was written in Greek. In
Mat 13:55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
a Greek word meaning "brothers" is being translated. There's no ambiguity in Greek. Surely the Catholic Jerusalem Bible would translate this as "kinsmen" if they could do so in all intellectual honesty. After all, they translated Gen 14:14 using the word "kinsman", because that was the meaning of the Hebrew word being used.
Saints and Miscellaneous Questions
The authors set out to answer "Objection I": "The saints are dead. Catholics practice necromancy, communication with the dead, which is condemned (Dt 18:10-11)"
Their answer is "Necromancy means summoning forth spirits from the shadowy underworld (OT "Sheol"), in order to converse with them. By asking the saints in heaven to intercede for us, Catholics are not conjuring roaming spirits or communicating in any "spiritualistic" way. So prayer to the saints has nothing to do with necromancy." I think that people have just become so used to praying to saints in a "holy" atmosphere that it just seems second nature, like making Sunday the Sabbath.
What do the authors mean, not "spiritualistic"? Is it physical communication? Does Dt 18:10-11 limit it to a specific type of communication? Let's see what it says, according to the Catholic Jerusalem Bible:
There must never be anyone among you who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, who practises divination, who is soothsayer, augur or sorcerer, who uses charms, consults ghosts or spirits, or calls up the dead.
Are not they spirits who are saints? Certainly they are dead, if the word "dead" has a meaning at all, as the authors go on to say that the saints are not dead. They are "alive and with God". Well, on this basis, Catholic tradition would have it that no one is dead, as all the presumed dead are alive, either with God or elsewhere. That would make Dt 18:11 use a meaningless word, "dead". Would God inspire meaningless verses?
Later, Miscellaneous Question 2 asks "Why do Catholics worship statues in violation of Exodus 20:4-5?", part of the Ten Commandments.
The authors deny that Catholics worship statues, and then go on to claim that in "Ex 20:4-5, God prohibits the making of images for the purpose of worshipping them. But God does not prohibit image-making altogether." (Emphasis is theirs.) But what does Ex 20:4-5 say?
You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.
That's two separate statements. It's not one statement with a modifying phrase.
The authors continue by saying "In Ex 25:18-19, God commands Moses to make statues of angels (cherubim). In Num 21:8, God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent (seraph), which the Israelites had to look upon in order to be healed. The Jews also used many carved images in the Temple, including cherubim, oxen, lions, palm trees, and flowers (1 Kings 5 and 7)."
But what does that show? Just that the Old Testament was an agglomeration of various factions' ideas, not a unified whole.
Volume II: How to Answer Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons
While most of the remainder of the apologists' arguments would be of interest only if one took the Bible as being true, there are some further instances of selective Bible readings' leading to differing views of reality by different Christians. Again, this merely points out the self-contradictory nature of the Bible, and that one can prove any point by selective quotation. It's amusing to see the selectivity involved.
Jesus Only a Man
The Catholics wish to counter a Jehovah's Witness belief that Jesus was only a man. The JW argument is that Jesus did not have perfect knowledge, and in particular did not know the date of the end of the world. The Catholics claim that "Christ certainly knows when He is going to return, as is clear in numerous Bible passages (Mt 24:14, 27, 37-42; Mk 13:24-27; Lk 12:40, 18:8, 21:25-28; Rev 3:11, 16:15, 22:20)."
Curiously omitted is Mt 16:27-28, where Jesus claims "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
That doesn't sound like he knew, considering he hasn't shown up yet.
The verses the Catholics cite, but do not quote, do not indicate Jesus knows when he's coming back. Maybe that's why they don't quote them. For example:
Mat 24:14 And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come.
gives no hint of knowing when this will happen. The only time indication Jesus gave was that it would be within the lifetimes of some of his listeners (even bolstered by one of the Catholics' own citations: Rev 3:11 "I am coming soon"), and we know that's wrong.
Annihilation of the Soul
The Catholic apologists seek to discredit Jehovah's Witnesses' belief that the soul can cease to exist. They use specious reasoning: "death involves decomposition: the breaking up of the body into parts. Since a spiritual substance has no parts to break up, it is naturally immortal". They appeal even to the pagan philosophers, without specifying their reasoning. They beg the question by saying "Although God has the power to annihilate a soul, He will never do this because He will never contradict the immortal nature He has given to the human soul.
Glossed over is the fact that at one time any given soul didn't exist, and the soul could return to that state.
Next, appeal is made to "Sacred Scripture". It is mentioned that "God made man in His image", and therefore humans must have a spiritual element. So? It doesn't mean the spirit must be immortal any more than the spirit is eternal (it had a beginning; it can have an end).
A series of Biblical appearances of dead people is trotted out: Samuel to Saul, Moses at Jesus' tranfiguration, as well as Abraham, Lazarus and the rich man being described as "still living in the next world". I'm sure Jehovah's Witnesses agree that some souls will survive.
The Catholics quote Mt 10:18 as having Jesus say not to fear human beings, who can kill only the body, not the soul. It's truly amazing that they cite this verse, as it says in full:
Mat 10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
clearly indicating that while Hell may be an unquenchable fire, its purpose is to annihilate souls; that is, hell lasts, but the soul is destroyed.
The Catholics finally get around to quoting Eccles 9:5-6; we'll give you a little more even:
Eccl 9:1-11 All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them is vanity, since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners; those who swear are like those who shun an oath. This is an evil in all that happens under the sun, that the same fate comes to everyone. Moreover, the hearts of all are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun. Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do. Let your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all.
The Catholics toss this off as "in the OT, God had not yet revealed very much about the afterlife. The dead are often described as if they no longer existed." Yet we are still to believe that the Bible, including the OT, is divinely inspired? This is not the leaving out of important doctrine, but actual contradiction of Catholic doctrine in supposedly inspired literature. The quotations that they supply from early church fathers doesn't change this fact.
Left out of the Catholics' discussion are
Gen 3:22 Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"--
indicating that by nature, man does not possess immortality.
The apologists also fail to disclose
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
indicating, not eternal torment, but death, as a punishment for sin. These same arguments apply against the Catholic apologists' next section, "A Temporary Hell", another of the Jehovah's Witnesses' belief to which they object.
